Note: This article takes the format of a short review in the beginning and after that, a longer deep-dive on a specific topic in the game
Spiritfarer is a peaceful contemplation of death, grief and memory. I found it to be a refreshing change from the dark and gritty tone that has been a recurring theme in many films and games that explore similar topics. The only other exploration of death that I found riveting in games recently was Hades (Supergiant Games, 2018), where the player character constantly dies, and where death is seen as another form of progression.
With no outright fail condition, cheery artstyle and easy-to-learn resource management mechanics, Spiritfarer is a deceptively straightforward game. It’s only until you dive deeper into building connections with your resident spirits, that you can see it’s a truly masterful exploration of an otherwise complex topic. It makes the questions of death and goodbyes accessible, and guides you down an emotional rollercoaster of feelings, without feeling contrived. It was at the moment when I had to say goodbye to my first spirit, did I realise that this was going to be a ride to remember. Definitely a MUST PLAY.
9.5/10
Dive Deeper
In Spiritfarer, the first few spirits you bring on board your ship teach you the ins and outs of ship management and taking care of your passengers. One teaches you how to use the loom. “Good job!” she exclaims, as you make your first thread. Another one, who affectionately calls you “Sprout”, teaches you how to fish. When you haven’t fished in a few days, he’ll make a comment about how relaxing fishing is, and that “you should give it a try!”
Each spirit also has their own associated “Special Event” or Mini-game, that is triggered when the ship enters a specific area, or when a specific element is interacted with. These mini-games are meant to be an expression of that Spirit’s personality and struggles. For example, one of the mini-games involves curing a massive dragon, a metaphor for that spirit’s battle with recurring cancer. A mini-game I particularly enjoyed was one where you had to chase comets, a reflection of how this spirit spent his life chasing after his passions and living in the moment.
Besides these day-to-day actions and special events, Spirits will also ask you to build and upgrade buildings. These might be their own personal house on the ship, but could also be various utility buildings that are required for the spirit’s care, or maybe just something the spirit enjoys. One of the spirits is vegan, and asks for fields and gardens to be built so that you can grow food for her to eat. For some reason, I kept on growing carrots?
When you finally say goodbye to a spirit, a flower is left behind in their house. It’s a final gift, but also a tombstone. Beyond the physical artifact that is left behind by their departure, it’s the actions and experiences that you did for, and with, the spirit that serves as the reminder of their mark on your journey. Each time you make a thread on the loom, you are reminded that the spirit who taught you how to use it is no longer there. Each time you fish, no one asks you how it went anymore. Each time you grow a carrot in the field, it’s no longer for that specific spirit. Even for the special events, while you can still play through them, you no longer do it with the spirit it was meant for, but rather you initiate it by interacting with the now-empty house that still stands.
In the paper “How the Death-themed Game Spiritfarer Can Help Players Cope with the Loss of a Loved One” (Eum, K., Erb, V., Lin, S., Wang, S., & Doh, Y.Y., 2021), the researchers explored how, in Spiritfarer, players experience grief through a model known as the Dual Process Model of Coping with Bereavement. This entails switching back and forth from thinking about their loved one and looking up memories about their loved one, (known as loss-orientation) to going about their day-to-day life and getting by (restoration-orientation).
Through most of the game, it’s easy to oscillate back and forth between these two orientations, as while you are saying goodbye to spirits and dealing with their departure, you are also caring for newer spirits that have come on board, and dealing with their idiosyncrasies. At the end of the game, however, you are left with a huge ship, with all these empty houses and flowers, driving home that you have said goodbye to all these spirits through the course of your sail. It is the oscillation of loss and restoration you experience in the game, that I feel strikes the strongest chord, and is a lesson that players can bring back to their own lives as well. How many habits have you picked up, from people who have left? How many objects do you hold, from people who are no longer in your life?
For most of the time in Spiritfarer, you have control over how, and when you say goodbye to spirits. While they may signal to you that it’s their time to go, it’s up to you to make the final decision. A Eurogamer review wrote about her experience saying that “The characters in Spiritfarer get to do what we all want — they can make peace with both their life and death in their own time. They get to decide when it’s time to move on”. In life, goodbyes are never that simple. It’s not often that you’ll be able to unilaterally decide that it’s time for someone to leave, or delay someone’s departure. You can decide though, to help them grow a carrot.
References
Eum, K., Erb, V., Lin, S., Wang, S., & Doh, Y.Y. (2021). How the Death-themed Game Spiritfarer Can Help Players Cope with the Loss of a Loved One. Extended Abstracts of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3411763.3451608
Supergiant Games (2018). Hades
Hetfield, M. (2020). Spiritfarer review — a beautiful, unique blend of genres. EuroGamer. https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2020-08-18-spiritfarer-review-a-beautiful-unique-blend-of-genres
